


Scars of Innocence

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Awkward Romance, Being Lost, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Enemies to Friends, Explanations, F/M, Fluff, Holding Hands, Introspection, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Self-Discovery, Surprises, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Ship Actually Works, Wanderlust, compassion - Freeform, discussions, light banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: When Arcee goes for a drive, she finds someone unexpected sitting among the ruins of a once-great Cybertronian city. Naturally, his company stirs up old memories.





	Scars of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Time and Effort](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7360099) by [Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor). 



> This is the sequel to "Time and Effort" and "Precious Queen", two other Megacee stories. I hope you like it!

There were times Arcee just needed her space. It wasn’t anything the others had done and she wasn’t particularly angry about anything, but sometimes as she stared over the vast expanse of Cybertron, over the current construction and beyond to the desolate wastelands still to come, the thoughts and feelings overwhelmed her and she instinctively transformed and drove away.

Such was the case now. She had backed out of a group conversation, trying to slip away quietly and instead drawing curious stares from all of the others. She had offered no explanation before taking off, hoping they would understand.

The solitude, the feeling of gritty rust under her tires, the wind against her front bumper, it all reminded her of Jasper, kicking up sand with a hologram fluttering on her back. She didn’t have to bother putting it up now, but to complete the fantasy, she couldn’t resist. The leather-clad biker came to life, but Arcee could sense all too well that there was no heat from the woman’s body, no life or enthusiasm to the grip on her handlebars, and the femme couldn’t help feeling more alone than ever.

Worst of all, she missed Jack. She missed him so much; even though he was just a space bridge away, he was getting older and earning more and more responsibility from Agent Fowler. Arcee couldn’t be prouder of him, but it also meant they both had to make sacrifices. There was far less time for Jack— _Agent Darby_ now—to be chit-chatting with his former motorcycle.

More often than not, he and Arcee played a game he called “phone tag”, missing each other no matter when she came to visit. He would be in a briefing or she would be liaising for new arrivals…Now she couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that she was being…outgrown.

Caught up in her thoughts, Arcee traveled much farther from the base than she might have otherwise, but she came to a screeching halt when she saw that she wasn’t alone. Reeling out of her alt. mode, she automatically leveled her blasters, but the large mech didn’t react; he had his back to her.

“Megatron,” she muttered in mild disbelief, lowering her blasters just a fraction. She knew better than to put them away completely, but if she thought back to the last time she had seen the warlord, he might not be the first to attack. He was still ignoring her, but surely he had heard her transformation.

“Well, well,” Megatron mused, his voice made gravelly from lack of use. His helm tilted ever so slightly in her direction, but he never fully turned from where he sat amidst a craggy pile of debris. “If it isn’t the Autobot femme, Arcee.”

Those words were strikingly familiar, Arcee realized, optics widening. He had spoken those words a long, long time ago, when she was trapped aboard the _Nemesis_. That had been certainly one of her stranger battles with him, dodging his cannon blasts but entirely, unnervingly helpless against his words. Dare she think of it as flirting?

Dare she think of it _fondly?_ For whatever reason, her core temperature inched higher, giving her systems a telltale flush of heat. She shook her helm against the notion and cautiously took a step closer.

“What are you doing so far out here?” she asked bluntly. “I thought you fled the planet.”

“As you were meant to,” Megatron assured her, finally deigning to glance back at her. Arcee was a bit startled to see how dim and soft his optics were. For half a nanoklik she could almost fool herself into thinking that they were a deep blue, but when she blinked, the violet of Unicron’s blood blinked back at her.  

They stared at each other for a number of kliks unaccounted for and then Megatron shifted. Arcee’s blasters whined warningly in response to the sudden movement, but all he did was sweep an arm at the nearby empty space on top of the wreckage. “If you wish,” he offered. “I intend nothing untoward, I assure you.”

“And I’m just supposed to take you at your word?” Arcee huffed, even as she was examining him. His posture was unaggressive, even relaxed, so it didn’t _seem_ like he was planning to attack her, but who knew? He could be biding his time out here under the guise of “self-discovery” and return to slaughter them in his former fashion when they least expected it.

A shrill, keen anger stung every nervecircuit in her frame. Cliffjumper and Tailgate, two mechs she had loved, had died because of this mech—even if it hadn’t been by his hand, it had been in his name, in the name of everything he stood for. It would be so very easy to shoot him in the back and finally find some closure for her dear former partners.

Still she couldn’t help but hesitate. She could still hear Optimus; she clearly remembered the many times he had cautioned her: _“Your desire to avenge them will only continue to cloud your judgment.”_ Even if she put that aside, Ultra Magnus had ordered his troops not to act in a hostile manner on the few patches of neutral ground, even around former Decepticons.

After a full minute, she put her blasters away. “Fine. But you keep your hands to yourself,” she deadpanned, nimbly scaling the pile of debris and perching lightly on one of the only flat spaces, a few feet away from the former warlord. With exaggeratedly precise, methodical movements, Megatron folded each of his claws together and planted them gently in his lap, far away from her.

Resisting the urge to roll her optics, Arcee followed his gaze over the wilds before them. The sun was coming up, filtering its light through the various toppled buildings and worming through the rust to give any shattered pieces of cybre-glass a dim sparkle. It was a sharp, rustic, aged scene and it made Arcee’s spark ache.

“Why did you come here?” she questioned—more of herself than of her companion, but Megatron still answered.

“This was one of the first cities I saw when I clawed my way out of the Well,” he stated. “I took my first steps above ground…I saw the sun…and I supposed I was _free_ here.” His lips parted for a familiar fanged sneer, but it wasn’t quite as vicious as it used to be. “I was not. Nameless and accursed, I was dragged back underground to the mines, forced into servitude.”

“Oh, like the Vehicons?” Arcee snorted.

Megatron gave her a sideways glance, seeming vaguely surprised, but he inclined his helm in something of a nod. “As the flesh creatures might say, touché.”

Silence fell over them for a while, which Arcee filled with thoughts of her partners. What would they think of this ruin? Cliffjumper would talk away the pain, telling stories of other places and distracting her enough that she could smile again, while Tailgate would instead focus her on it, encouraging her to look at one piece at a time instead of the whole. She fidgeted, now fully focused on one thing: the rust where she sat. It was pretty uncomfortable, so she cast a surreptitious glance at her companion, who sat completely at ease on a cleaner portion.

Frowning, she edged guardedly closer, inch by inch, until she had escaped the rust. Of course, now she had the problem of being immediately next to him. If he made a grab at her, she wasn’t sure she would be able to dodge. Megatron raised an eyebrow at her but made no comment. In fact, Arcee was forced to wonder if he had planned this; was that a glint of amusement in his optics? She wanted to put an end to that right away.

“How did you even _get_ a name? I’ve heard that you called yourself Megatronus—and then Megatron—in the gladiatorial arenas, but did you ever think of being anything else before you became the killer of Cybertron?”

“How prettily phrased,” he groused lightly, the baritone rumble of his voice trailing off, searching for words. “D-16.” Arcee tilted her helm questioningly and he couldn’t help another smile, wryer, pained and out of practice. “D-16…That was what I called myself in my innocence. I was named after the mines in which I worked.”

The thought of being named after an energon mine made Arcee’s spark sink a little. Innocence? She tried to imagine this towering, powerful mech as an innocent and found it difficult—impossible—so instead she thought of the Vehicons. What had Megatron been like back then? Had he been as submissive and unnoticed as they were? Dull, filthy gray armor, passive voice, true blue optics?

That mental image was…much like what she saw here—shockingly so. He may be larger, sharper, but his luster was riddled with rust, his voice was flat and bitter, and his optics were strained by the taint of the dark energon. Lowering her optics, she considered for several moments and then, ever so slowly, she reached and tentatively brushed a hand over his arm. He startled at the sudden touch, glancing sharply down at her, but she didn’t move. There was a part of her that couldn’t believe her actions, but it was too late to back down now. She wasn’t a coward; she tightened her grip even as Megatron unfolded his own hands from their restful position.

He reached over toward her and she tensed, but before she could beat a hasty retreat, his hand settled over hers. It was warm and weathered, scarred underneath the mesh, much like Optimus’ had been. _How on Cybertron can I even be comparing them?_ Arcee wondered somewhere in the back of her mind, but she didn’t move and neither did Megatron. The full reality of their situation struck her then: they were sitting next to each other, watching the sunrise and _holding hands_.

Fraggin’ scrap, how had it happened? She was trying to reach out to someone, but was that someone Megatron, the slag-maker, the destroyer of Cybertron, or D-16, the weary, lonely mech left behind? She couldn’t reconcile the two of them, but now…she genuinely wanted to. She had come out here for solitude and had ended up in his company. Was it for a reason? It wasn’t as bad as she might have supposed.

Maybe it would even happen again sometime.


End file.
